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Talking about Netflix

The DVD rental service will be called Qwikster, and will not integrated with Netflix, which is henceforth a streaming only service. Qwikster will be offering video games along with DVDs.

I think that it was an inevitable move and probably a sensible one for the company, but a bad one for me. I love Netflix's instant selection, but I'm a guy who often wants to watch specific things, and they are usually hard to find. I'm still keeping Netflix; instant is a great deal for me, and I can use it daily without ever thinking "Well, I guess I'll watch this thing since there's nothing good in here", but losing that extra option hurts. There's just no stopping progress.

Meanwhile I'm probably going to give Facets a try, to see how their selection stacks up against Qwikster.

It doesn't seem like having two websites is going to work very well if you want both things. In the comments he says the ratings and stuff will eventually diverge. You'll have to manage two accounts.

However, the idea that Netflix is finally going to have games is really interesting to me. Their logistics are much better than Gamefly's and I've always wanted Netflix to have games for rental. We'll just have to see how much that costs...

Yeah, this is the point where I ditch DVDs. Not going to deal with managing what is essentially a list of movies I'd like to watch on two different, unconnected sites. When they raised prices I didn't raise an eyebrow. When they make their service intentionally less user friendly, I'm out.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). Members who subscribe to both services will have two entries on their credit card statements, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as the current charges.

This really pisses me off. I'll have to manage two different sites, I won't automatically be alerted when stuff from my DVD queue is available on instant, and now my ratings and recommendations will be completely independent. I still rent 3-4 discs per month, so I can't drop the service, but I'm so fucking annoyed and this hasn't even affected me yet.

Best case scenario: Netflix manages the decline of DVD/Blu-Ray over the next 2-5 years (probably the remaining viable lifespan of DVD/Blu-Ray,) kills GameFly entirely, and sells the business off to some moron who is perfectly happy to ride the physical media wave into the side of a cliff. Using that extra time and the extra money, they secure streaming rights to a BUNCH of stuff that they know consumers are wanting, plus securing financing for original programming on top of that.

Best case scenario: Netflix manages the decline of DVD/Blu-Ray over the next 2-5 years (probably the remaining viable lifespan of DVD/Blu-Ray,) kills GameFly entirely, and sells the business off to some moron who is perfectly happy to ride the physical media wave into the side of a cliff. Using that extra time and the extra money, they secure streaming rights to a BUNCH of stuff that they know consumers are wanting, plus securing financing for original programming on top of that.

ooooh. Cause if they keep both streaming and hard-media under one label, and hard-media dies, then part of the label is tarnished given its relation to DVDs?

But if streaming is its own thing, then it doesn't go down with that particular ship.

It SHOULD. will it? I don't know. A side-effect I (probably naively) hope for in my article is that the increased userbase on the Netflix streaming-side causes a LOT more noise to be made regarding net neutrality and the loosening of some ALREADY tight bandwidth caps put in place by service providers.

Unless there is a physical law tying our hands there's nothing stopping us from improving the technology and our Internet infrastructure until we can stream the same content as what's on a Blu-Ray disc, or beyond.

Best case scenario: Netflix manages the decline of DVD/Blu-Ray over the next 2-5 years (probably the remaining viable lifespan of DVD/Blu-Ray,) kills GameFly entirely, and sells the business off to some moron who is perfectly happy to ride the physical media wave into the side of a cliff. Using that extra time and the extra money, they secure streaming rights to a BUNCH of stuff that they know consumers are wanting, plus securing financing for original programming on top of that.

Long-term, any barrier to digital distribution matching quality of physical media isn't going to be because of technical limitations. It'll be fucked up business deals and/or a system of regulations designed to prop up the zombie corpses of old establishment distribution models.

Yeah. DVD/Blu-Ray has about 5 years left. It'll limp along past that point, I'm sure, but the bubble will have definitely burst by then.

5 years ago, DVD was considered invincible. It's widely considered to be in serious decline now. Blu-Ray won't be able to replace it - it's closer to the relationship Laserdisc had with VHS. Not as niche, of course, the pricing has seen to that - but either way, Blu-Ray simply doesn't have the numbers to replace DVD as DVD dies, so it'll likely decay along with it.

Long-term, any barrier to digital distribution matching quality of physical media isn't going to be because of technical limitations. It'll be fucked up business deals and/or a system of regulations designed to prop up the zombie corpses of old establishment distribution models.

the biggest bottleneck would be the amount of time it'd take to roll out tons of infrastructure to service the middle of nowhere with enough bandwidth

which also makes the assumption that telecoms are somewhat agile when it comes to do that sort of work (you'd better fucking believe they aren't)

and that users will be willing to give up physical media of content which the content owners already insist they do not own to instead have digital copies (or viewing licenses or whatever) of content which the content owners insist they do not own

Damn this sucks for me. I am one of the random people that has zero movies in my instant que because i burned through all of the movies i wanted to see on streaming, leaving 100+ regular dvd rentals to see. I guess ill keep both for now and hope that the streaming collection increases and that somehow both websites can reference each other, otherwise they both become a waste for me (but thats just me).

Then again, the name and the quality of the video makes it look like an April Fools joke.

In 5 years, DVD will have been commercially viable for about 15 years. That's a pretty good run. About as good as VHS had it, commercially. VHS, for all intents and purposes, became a marginalized shell of its former self right around 1999. Sure, they continued production in dwindling numbers up until the mid 2000's, but it was basically a zombie media.

I just don't think Blu-Ray has, or will gain, the foothold necessary to survive the death of DVD, since it's having a hard time simply keeping pace, even with DVD declining and Blu-Ray slowly ascending. So when DVD goes the way of VHS, Blu-Ray will probably quietly go along with it. I'm not saying they won't still be produced in 10 years. I'm saying the market for them will be pretty small.

Yeah. DVD/Blu-Ray has about 5 years left. It'll limp along past that point, I'm sure, but the bubble will have definitely burst by then.

5 years ago, DVD was considered invincible. It's widely considered to be in serious decline now. Blu-Ray won't be able to replace it - it's closer to the relationship Laserdisc had with VHS. Not as niche, of course, the pricing has seen to that - but either way, Blu-Ray simply doesn't have the numbers to replace DVD as DVD dies, so it'll likely decay along with it.

This is an incredibly limited perspective. The infrastructure backbone and services simply don't exist for this to happen.

More simply: not everyone can even get Netflix streaming or the equivalent, let alone has it

The idea that 5 years from now, physical media will be mostly gone seems based on assumptions that don't hold for alot of people. The question isn't wether DVD is being replaced by streaming or the like, it's whether that replacement can continue to anywhere near 100%. And I'd say, no, it can't. The people jumping ship right now are the ones that can. There's still tons that can't.

Fuck, you want a good example of this? Blockbuster Canada was making money. They only went into receivership because the US company sacrificed them to their creditors.

Long-term, any barrier to digital distribution matching quality of physical media isn't going to be because of technical limitations. It'll be fucked up business deals and/or a system of regulations designed to prop up the zombie corpses of old establishment distribution models.

pretty much this exactly.

I'm not seeing the difference. The technical limitations of the internet are caused by those business interests and such. And there's no indication this is going to change any time soon, let alone in time to kill physical media in the next 5 years.

physical media is already dying, though. And a lot can happen in 5 years. For accusing me of having a limited perspective, you're putting a lot of limits on what can and can't go down in 5-10 years.

Sorry, I'm sure in 5-10 years, cable and carrier companies will magically decide to start infrastructure improvements and bandwith caps will go the way of the Dodo and so everyone will get highspeed no-cap internet and have access to online services with all the latest content.

And then everyone will win the lottery, but in a way that doesn't cause massive inflation so we all get to be rich together.

Or we can live in reality where the only thing the future seems to hold is content creators doing their best to bend Netflix and it's ilk over a table and rape them to death.